An education in pure marketing can land you a job in the sector. However, additional certifications are often required to advance your career. For marketing professionals, the solution is often to get an MBA. The MBA allows marketers to capitalize on their skills and gain expertise in other areas that could eventually allow them to perfect their craft. This also makes them eligible for a larger number of positions and allows them to have a set of expertise a few of their competitors will have.

Here are 5 reasons why an MBA could help propel your marketing career to new heights.

The Skills It Teaches

Marketing management is far more than marketing. It also requires knowing how business works. An MBA program teaches you how to create budgets, conduct market research, craft market strategies and lead a team. You’ll learn how to gain insights into customer needs and market trends, so your initiatives are more likely to succeed, and you learn what strategies work. 

This means that MBA programs prepare you to be a leader in the marketing department, leading teams, projects and departments. In short, it prepares you for the next stage of your career, and employers know this. This is why marketing firms often seek out MBA students for internships or new positions. For some people, the MBA program improves their communication skills, helping them polish their presentations and better defend their points, and helping them to succeed at work.

Its Impact on Pay

An industry survey found that six in ten marketing professionals expected a pay raise this year. Marketing salaries have been increased by 3 to 4 percent per year, while those living in London have pay raises of more than 4 percent. On the flipside, 20 percent don’t get a raise at all.

What many fail to appreciate is how further education and career advancement can lead to a bump in pay. At upper pay rates, 2 to 3 percent annual raises are nearly guaranteed. In short, you’ll get a pay raise if you get promoted, and a promotion will nearly guarantee continued pay increases.

The likely rise in pay gives an MBA a significant return on the investment. Yet many cannot afford to quit their jobs to pursue a degree. Fortunately, you don’t have to choose between your long-term prospects and paying the bills. Schools like Victoria University have a 100% online MBA that could allow you to continue working while earning a master’s degree. These programs also allow you to either stretch your studies to alleviate the workload or condense it so you can get your qualifications faster.

The Opportunities It Prepares You For

A master’s degree gives you a holistic understanding of business. This is necessary to move into marketing management. You’ll also be better able to understand how marketing decisions affect the rest of the business, so you can make a strong business case for your services or your decisions.

An MBA is essential if you want to successfully launch your own firm or work as a marketing consultant as well. Potential clients want to know that you can think strategically, not just give them a good sales pitch. An MBA shows that you understand the market, are able to plan entire campaigns, and can handle unforeseen events. Furthermore, an MBA teaches you the skills necessary to lead your own organization successfully.

The Impact It Has on Your Employability

The salary numbers we cited earlier are for permanent marketing jobs. One of the benefits of having an MBA is that it shows you have determination and the advanced skills that an employer values. This increases the odds you’ll be hired for a permanent position and be retained if there are layoffs. 

Earning an MBA can also open up new roles to you, such as becoming a market research analyst, sales manager, or promotions manager. You now have more jobs you could fill. This is the benefit of having learned about accounting, the budgeting process, marketing management, and market research while earning your MBA. Furthermore, MBA students have a proven ability to utilize data to make data-driven decisions based on customer or client insights. This is a growing requirement for businesses and a skill that would make you a valuable asset on the job marketplace.

The High-Tech Jobs It Opens Up to You

Tech firms are starting to realize they need marketing professionals. Marketing professionals are needed to coordinate online marketing for advertisers with the needs of social media sites. They prefer individuals with MBAs, while it allows those with a marketing background to move into a new, growing field. 

In other cases, marketing MBAs are analyzing data from websites to determine which websites get the most traffic and generate the most leads. Marketing professionals are thus involved in ecommerce and website design without having to master IT. And the skills they need to do this job are taught in business analytics class.

An MBA will make you eligible for new roles such as social media coordinator, SEO specialist, SEO content writer, search engine marketing specialist and data analyst. We can say that the marketing expertise and other skills you gain while earning an MBA prepares you for not just the real world of marketing, but the future of it. The real-world projects you take on with your classmates prepares you for these roles, and it makes you the first choice for companies that want to improve their digital marketing efforts. If this area is of particular interest to you, seek out a marketing program that doesn’t neglect digital marketing.

MBA degrees, in general, prepare you for a wider range of roles. An MBA in any concentration combined with an expertise in marketing will open up a number of careers while increasing your odds of success. That results in far better pay rates and greater employability.